'PRINCIPAL DESPATCHES AND CORRESPONDENCE RELATING TO PERSIA CONNECTED WITH THE SUMMARY OF EVENTS AND MEASURES OF VICEROYALTY OF HIS EXCELLENCY LORD CURZON OF KEDDLESTON IN THE FOREIGN DEPARTMENT. JANUARY 1899 TO NOVEMBER 1905. VOLUME IV-PART IV. PERSIA.' [‎57v] (119/136)

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TB'iTffgifttimiaai
thinking that there is any international combination to which we should look
as a buttress to our interests or influence in that quarter. These views are
expressed independently of the question, which has never been referred to us
for opinion, of the ultimate completion of the German Asia Minor Railway
to the Gulf; for we presume that it is an accepted principle with His Majesty’s
Government that, should the line ever be continued south of Baghdad, this
cannot be done without British co-operation and consent; and that no terminal
port can be selected, unless a similar consent has been obtained, and unless
the port is made open and international in character: further, if these views
are also entertained by His Majesty’s Government, we think that nothing
but good could result from Germany being made acquainted with them, lest,
when her railway reaches Baghdad, she might complain of having been kept
in ignorance of British policy and intentions.
3. The other alternative, namely, that of an agreement with Russia about
the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , is one that we view with still less sympathy. Such an agree
ment could only be purchased at the sacrifice of advantages, now in our sole and
undisputed possession, the importance of which is perhaps not as fully recognized
as it deserves to be. As will be seen later on, we favour the fullest and most
explicit statement to Russia of our views and intentions; but we do not at
present see either the materials for a compromise or the necessity for an
understanding. The situation would, no doubt, be altered, if the Russian
Government were to acquiesce in the statement of British policy that was
made by the Marquess of Lansdowne in his conversation with the Russian
Ambassador on 25th November last, as reported to us in your telegram of
3rd December. But we are at present without information as to the likelihood
of any such result.
4. There is another respect in which the views that we have been invited to
discuss seem to us to be coloured by apprehensions in excess of the probabilities
of the case. The situation that has been contemplated by certain of the writers
of the memoranda in question is one in which the whole of Southern Persia,
within a line drawn from Seistan on the east to Kermanshah on the w 7 est,
would be occupied, or attempted to be occupied, by British troops, while these
would be confronted at a slight distance by the armed forces of Russia, in
similar occupation of the north of the country, and threatening the British posi
tion, either at once or in the future, with hostile advance. Viewed from this
standpoint, stress has been laid upon the risks of a position in which at least
50,000 and perhaps 100,000 British soldiers would be required to hold a long
and in places indefensible frontier, and in which they would be faced by an
enemy, possessing almost inexhaustible resources of men and uninterrupted
land communication with his base. Even the tribes which are regarded as
turbulent, when there is a question of their being controlled by Great Britain,
become, in pursuit of this hypothesis, the useful instruments of Russia’s
designs. In our opinion this picture bears little relation to the probable facts.
We do not contemplate as even remotely likely any position in which Great
Britain would occupy and hold the whole or the greater part of the south of
Persia, while Russia did the same in the north. Still less do we foresee a
situation in which an inadequate force of British troops would be confronted,
or compelled to retire, by a vastly superior Russian army, pouring in from the
Caucasus, the Caspian, and Khorasan. We think that perhaps insufficient atten
tion has been paid to the extreme unlikelihood that Persia will become either the
sole or the main theatre of war between Russia and Great Britain. The former
has many other frontiers to guard and many other fields of conflict upon which
her forces would in all probability be engaged. We see no reason for suppos
ing that she would be able to concentrate the great bulk of her forces in Persia,
or to undertake the sustained and overwhelming advance to the south that
seems to have been contemplated in some of these papers.
5. The first necessity accordingly in our opinion is to correlate the problem
submitted to us both with the general tendency of Russian policy in Asia and
with the facts of the Persian situation. In our view the Asiatic history of
Russia during the past half century lends no support to the theory that she
desires k) conquer or annex Persia, to subvert the Persian monarchy, or destroy
the Kajar house. On the contrary, her policy everywhere, at Constantinople, at
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